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Haunted

Haunted

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful and Mysterious Gothic-type Ghost Story
Review: Haunted starring Aidan Quinn was an excellent movie. I loved the spooky house. The strange relationship between the siblings at the house was intriguingly decadent. I particularly enjoyed the performance of the housekeeper. The film is full of vivid imagery and keeps you guessing until the end.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: excellent horror movie
Review: excellent movie based on the novel "haunted" by James Herbert. The strange thing is that the video does not mention the fact that it is based on the book. I was very pleasantly surprised! The film is just like the book scary, and full of suspense, a must see for horror fans.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Thought it was very slow and predictable
Review: I just thought it would be fun to get a scary movie and this was not it. However enjoyable it was nontheless a typical "scary movie" It had the little girl in the victorian era white dress, the childrens whispers in the middle of the night, the scratching on the door. I think they tried and I give them an A for effort but as far as scary, the only thing scary is I paid to rent it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Suspense & Surprises Abound
Review: Don't know how I (and so much of the general public) overlooked this excellent movie during its theatrical release. This is a treat for those who like a haunted house thriller that is packed with surprises. The shocker at the end will blow you away.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A good story of a skeptical parapsychologist's investigation
Review: Aidan Quinn actually spent some time at the American Society for Psychical Research before this movie was filmed, and the result is an unsually accurate rendering of what was involved in investigating hauntings and seances in the early 1900s. While the story has some implausible elements, it was nonetheless enjoyable and I particularly liked one of the plot twists towards the end. END

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Chilling period piece!
Review: HAUNTED looks more "PBS" than "Hollywood slasher". It appears to be slow moving at times but is thoroughly enjoyable if you look forward to being absorbed in an intelligent period piece. While the entire cast was superb, Kate Beckinsale is stand-out exquisite as the "audaciously charming" Christina Mariell, making this is an essential purchase for Beckinsale fans alone. The ending is truly shocking if you don't see it coming. Knowing how it ends however, has not deterred me from watching HAUNTED again and again. Just hinting a little here - if you haven't already seen it (I won't give anything away), take note of the following scenes (which have become my favorites): when the gypsy woman studies Christina Mariell's palm and says "I cannot tell you anything you do not already know" and how Nanny Tess behaves during the party scene before the Mariell's play "hide and seek". Chilling! I recommend this wholeheartedly to anyone who enjoys a good, old fashioned ghost story!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A bit long, but intriquing!
Review: I really enjoyed this movie. It was an interesting ghost story with a few unforseen twists. Quinn plays a professor who likes to debunk supernatural phenomena as all just 'smoke and mirrors'. He's asked to come visit a stately manor house and check out three siblings'old housekeeper-nanny's complaint that the house is haunted. At first it looks like the nanny's imagining things, but after a day or two, Quinn begins to wonder if maybe the old woman isn't on to something evil. He begins to doubt his own thoughts regarding the supernatural. And worse- if there are evil ghosts at the old house, what do they want with him? There is some subtle clever dialogue in this movie that slipped right by some Imaginative Cinema Society friends of mine-and who were delighted when I pointed them out. See if you can catch them, too!

My only complaint is that it could've been tightened up a little, and come in with a shorter running time.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Attempts to mask clichéd story with fashionable excess.
Review: Add Lewis Gilbert's overlooked (and with good reason) "Haunted" to the steadily growing list of cliché-riddled horror movies that form the nadir of Hollywood's throw-away movies. Featuring a beautiful yet strangely meek set design, a particularly well-known cast, eerily familiar scoring, and a plot that is little more than a recycle bin of overused twists, and you come up with a movie that tries to cover up its inept storytelling with fashionable excess.

The movie begins promising enough, when David Ash (Aidan Quinn), an English college professor, receives a letter from one Ms. Webb (Anna Massey), known as Nanny Tess to the children who live in the house she believes to be haunted by evil spirits. Ash, who lost his twin sister at a young age, has typically built an emotional block against all things supernatural as a way of not dealing with his guilt. His capacity for scrutiny forces him back to his hometown of Sussex to quell Nanny Tess's fears about the ghosts she claims are haunting her home.

But, of course, he soon is party to strange occurrences once within the house: there are scratching noises on his door in the night, voices can be heard throughout the house without a body to claim them, and other sorts of delusional phenomena that he passes off as mere child's play. Of course, the so-called children are adults: there's jokester Simon (Alex Lowe), who delights in playing pranks, tight-lipped, serious Robert (Anthony Andrews), who finds it his place to rule over his sister, Christina (Kate Beckinsdale), who instantly takes a liking to David.

After some more of the usual bump-in-the-night trickery and games of the mind, the story begins to fall into even more familiar territory, losing what little suspense it had going for it and settling for a plot that grows ludicrous and bombastically bad. A tepid love interest with Christina leads to tension between he and Robert, who also seems to have a more-than-brotherly relationship with his sister; talk about family dysfunction. And of course, David will see his long-gone sister romping around the house and the grounds, leading him to each piece of the puzzle surrounding the apparitions of the house.

These and many other routine plot twists and storylines abound without hesitation through the film's entire. I enjoyed the beginning of the relationship between David and Christina, played nicely by Quinn and Beckinsdale, who share a warm chemistry. But the script is a waste of their talent, keeping Quinn's character in a glassy-eyed haze much of the time, while Beckinsdale provides various T&A shots that are distasteful and unappealing despite her attractiveness.

The mere fact that this movie had some good potential, as evident in its well-developed beginning, also furthered my fatigue throughout the final act; perhaps I expected too much. And why not? If a movie such as this can afford the talents of Beckinsdale and Quinn and waste them both, it could at least make an effort to look like a first-class movie. Here, the sets are nice to look at, but lack the opulence needed to truly dazzle an audience, such as that of Robert Wise's "The Haunting." The musical score is reflective of dozens of scores from similar films, playing like something out of an "Unsolved Mysteries" rerun, which prevents it from evoking any believable tone or energy.

Director Lewis Gilbert seems to have made an attempt to create a movie that is marginally pleasing, but "Haunted" is little more than a waste of time better spent looking for a better movie. His "surprise" ending may not be easily spotted until its arrival, but the satisfaction it provides (or lack thereof) is something entirely different. This is a very unremarkable horror film, one that attempts to put a spin of elegance on a standard, run-of-the-mill plot that can't seem to find a suitable hiding spot these days.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best haunted house movies
Review: For fans of Kate Beckinsale the movie "Haunted" is certainly a guilty pleasure - why guilty, not because it's a bad movie but simply because the young British actress has more nudity in this picture than in all her other movies combined.
Two years prior to this movie Beckinsale has her first topless scene in the movie "Uncovered," and here she throws all caution to the wind - along with most of her clothes. It's a somewhat uncharacteristically scary movie from Lewis Gilbert, the man who gave us some of the silliest James Bond movies such as "You Only Live Twice" and "Moonraker."
In this 1996 movie the ever-watchable Aidan Quinn plays Dr. Ash, a skeptic who accepts the invitation to investigate supernatural goings-on at a creepy country estate. Once there he begins to witness some unexplainable occurrences and for those of you looking for a twist in the end of your stories - this one has a doozey. Not to give too much away, but nothing is quite as it seems and this one gives they yet-to-be-made "Sixth Sense" a run for its money in more ways than one.
Adapted from the James Herbert novel this movie is probably one of my all-time favorite haunted house tales and joining Quinn and Beckinsale are the likes of Anthony Andrews, Anna Massey and John Gielgud (in what is essentially an extended cameo). It's a brilliant gothic tale with plenty to recommend about it. I saw it with my roomies, who are all horror-movie aficionado's and they all agreed it was a good show.
Is this movie scary - yes, does it thrill - yes it does that too. Is it a good purchase - yes, and if you are a Beckinsale fan it's a definite must for your collection.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: good show
Review: I don't care what technical objections others have, I LIKE this movie. Maybe I'm naive, but the ending came as a surprise to me. The movie is quite superior to the book, which left me rather cold.


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